Boy meets girl, or girl meets boy, emotions run high, sexual energy explodes and monotony and cliché abound--at least this is what can be gathered from the new attempt at romantic comedy from Valerie Breiman.

The story surrounds the plight of Kate (Janssen), a struggling writer trying to save her fledgling career at a beauty magazine by putting together a story on relationships. She looks back on her past relationships/conquests as a source of reference, and recounts her trials and tribulations on the road to the ultimate goal of a normally functioning relationship. Her only travelling companion on this journey into the past is cynicism. She recounts the true love of her life, a painter named Adam (Favreau), who broke up with her after the spark of excitement in their long-term relationship fizzled into nothingness.

It is never really clear why Adam and Kate break up, because for a couple on the verge of having a child together, being bored just doesn’t seem like a good enough reason. Therefore, you spend the rest of the movie fidgeting in your seat, wondering why they don’t just get back together. The gods of logic are pointing toward it, and so is the fact that the movie has already run its course after 25 minutes. The plot of the movie is bland to say the least. Even the added spice of a David Schwimmer cameo doesn’t help as it hurtles its way to the top of the "Boy, the curtain decorations in this cinema are more interesting than this movie!" category. The relationship between Kate and Adam is nicely developed, although it seems a little too perky in its cutesy-sarcastic nature. One of the biggest criticisms of the movie, however, is the way in which it shifts in time without any regard for the viewer. It’s unclear whether events are occurring during, before or after Kate has written the piece. The space/time continuum goes haywire during this film, and it’s almost headache-inducing trying to figure out the order of events.

There is really very little to say about LOVE & SEX. It explores neither love nor sex to any acceptable depth, and really has nothing to offer apart from a few brief "oh that was sweet" periods, and a few sex jokes. Mediocrity reigns supreme in this movie which seems more suited to being a collection of cute movie moments entitled "You Had Me At Hello" than a feature-length film.

—Priti Ubhayanakar

HYBRID Ratings Guide:

- Take a pal and pay full price for both tickets.

- It’s worth a full-price ticket.

- It’s worth a matinee ticket.

- Wait for video rental.

- Check out the video from the library, if you must.

- While we would never encourage anyone to destroy a video...